d83_sven_a@tekno.chalmers.se (SVEN AXELSSON) (08/30/90)
I need something very portable mainly for word processing purposes, and I'm thinking of buying an Atari Portfolio. Questions: o Is that a good choice, or are there other al|ternatives to consider? (I don't need a calculator, so I guess the HP machines are out of the question here. ) o I 'm a Macintosh user. Can the Portfolio handle sending files to and from my Macintosh, or is that a problem? o I intend to use this machine in academic meetings. I don't want to irritate people with beeps or keyboard clicks. What about the Portfolio in this respect? o I'm interested in logic programming and would like to port a small Prolog interpreter, written in Pascal, to the Portfolio. Will this be possible? o Do you think I should wait for a better, that is smaller and more powerful, machine? Is Atari planning a new version? Thanks for your opinions Torbjoern Lager Department of Linguistics, Gothenburg University, Sweden
jthornto@fs1.ee.ubc.ca (THORNTON JOHAN A) (09/01/90)
In article <11576@tekno.chalmers.se> d83_sven_a@tekno.chalmers.se (SVEN AXELSSON) writes: :I need something very portable mainly for word :processing purposes, and I'm thinking of buying :an Atari Portfolio. Questions: : :o Is that a good choice, or are there other : al|ternatives to consider? (I don't need a : calculator, so I guess the HP machines : are out of the question here. ) No. Don't buy it for wordprocessing. You can't touch type on it. For a bit less, you can buy a Tandy 100 something, which is a dedicated wordprocessor. It's somewhat bigger, but at least it's got 80 columns of text. It has an RS-232 interface to transfer its files to a host system. : :o I 'm a Macintosh user. Can the Portfolio : handle sending files to and from my Macintosh, : or is that a problem? : Does the Mac have RS-232? From what I've gathered about interfacing it to the 48SX, it does, but with a non-standard connector. If so, yes it can. :o I intend to use this machine in : academic meetings. I don't want to irritate : people with beeps or keyboard clicks. What : about the Portfolio in this respect? : No problems there. :o I'm interested in logic programming and : would like to port a small Prolog interpreter, : written in Pascal, to the Portfolio. Will this be : possible? : A small one. Are you writing it? As long as you use standard DOS i/o calls, it should work. :o Do you think I should wait for a better, that : is smaller and more powerful, machine? Is : Atari planning a new version? : An 80286 Portfolio is in the works. With 512K memory. Don't expect it to cost $350, though... :Thanks for your opinions :Torbjoern Lager :Department of Linguistics, Gothenburg :University, Sweden Halsa alla i Sverige... ------- _/__/ ----------------------------------------------------- _| ___| E l e c t r i c a l | Johan Thornton, Esq. | | |_/ E n g i n E E r i n g |------------------------- |/| __| U n i v e r s i t y | jthornto@fs1.ee.ubc.ca |-| |/__ o f B r i t i s h |------------------------- | |_____| C o l u m b i a | This space for rent ---- |__|/_| ------------------------------------------------------